


Bargirl

by dramatorama



Series: comment fic [2]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: F/M, I kind of have this thing about bars, therefore there may be some alcohol in this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 13:39:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3938857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramatorama/pseuds/dramatorama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's ten a.m. and Yuffie is relentless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bargirl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [likewinning](https://archiveofourown.org/users/likewinning/gifts).



"What's crackin', Vince?" The rattle and thump of her boots down uncarpeted stairs is enough to force his eyes shut, even without the way her voice pierces the fog in his brain and stabs directly into its pain centre.

Yuffie pauses in the doorway. "God, you look awful. You guys have a late night?" A hint of sympathy there at the end, though he doesn't deserve it. She'd offered to put the kids to bed, and when Tifa crept upstairs half an hour later, she'd snapped a photo of Yuffie curled up on Marlene's blankets with a story book open over her face. Not even the laughter had woken her. 

"Where's Tifa?" She moves behind the bar.

"Tifa has taken the children to the park." So that she could nap in the shade while Denzel watched Marlene; Vincent had seen her taking cool cans of soda from the fridge and, wincing, press one against her forehead. He can't blame her. "Everyone else is asleep." 

Yuffie has made herself a cocktail, away from Tifa's disapproving eyes: he'd call it a Long Island Iced Tea if it had any cola in it, or if he thought Long Island were a real place and not just the name of a bar. "Should you be drinking that for breakfast?" he asks her. The heavy irony of this drifts over to him a moment later. 

"Oh come on, Vince. You never partied when you were young?" She giggles, and the incongruity surprises him: for all that she is still terrifyingly young, no matter how little she cares to acknowledge that her knives and sharp grins and sarcasm are a personality she has invented for herself, the act rarely slips. He thinks of her sitting next to Shelke the previous evening, and how quick Yuffie had been to slip away. He thinks of Shelke's cold, mature logic and remembers, suddenly, that she and Yuffie are the same age. 

He has not replied. Yuffie is kicking her legs against the bar. She is so childish, but for once there is no real malice there; usually there is a sharp edge to her, but not even the barb about his age stings this morning. Perhaps it's the hangover. He seeks solace in his glass of wine, finds nothing in it but the same red throbbing behind his eyelids, and finally relents. 

"I couldn't tell you what life was like before Lucrecia." 

Yuffie stirs the ice in her drink with the end of her straw, making a whirlpool of chimes against the glass. "Not a thing? Not Yuletide? Birthdays? Wearing an ugly suit?" She's propped her chin in her hand to look at him better. If he weren't wise to her already, he'd think she was being sympathetic. It would only be a matter of time before she turned this into an anecdote about her last birthday party.

"Hojo shot me in the heart, Yuffie. He left me to rot, and Lucrecia rebuilt me out of scraps. I have mythril wrapped around my spine. I have cogs in my wrists. I do not know what happened to my brain." 

He'd taken his gloves off around four or five to play poker with Cid; nonetheless he is dimly surprised to feel Yuffie's hand around his wrist and her fingertips gliding across the delicate metacarpal bones, searching for metal. He guiltily pulls away.

She grins at him, and the knife-blade smile is back, every inch of it teeth. "I'm going to drink till both of our brains look like Kalm cheese." 

He is defeated. They toast.


End file.
